Auctions
Watches Star alongside the Cars at RM Sotheby’s Auction in Battersea Park
Auctions
Watches Star alongside the Cars at RM Sotheby’s Auction in Battersea Park
Bonhams led the way more than a decade ago when it started offering watches in the “automobilia” sections of its motoring sales, since then other specialist classic car auctioneers such as Coys and Silverstone have followed suit, warming up potential bidders by sending a few dozen appropriate timepieces across the block in advance of the main lots.
But Sotheby’s and its motoring affiliate, RM Sotheby’s, took things a little further last week at the annual car sale held in London’s Battersea Park when it created a pop-up watch shop to sell a few pieces direct. The firm’s watch department also showcased a selection of pieces from its traditional “live” auction taking place in London on 25 September and the three online watch sales it is staging between now and mid-October.
In the event, many of the “star cars” offered at Battersea – including a £3m Aston Martin DB4GT that once belonged to comedian Peter Sellers and starred alongside him in the 1963 slapstick The Wrong Arm of the Law – failed to sell on the night, with the eventual top lots proving to be a 2003 Ferrari Enzo at £1.9m, a 1953 Ferrari 212 Europa at £1.02m and a 1993 Porsche RS 3.8 at £933,125.
Unsurprisingly, the watch that attracted the most interest was the George Daniels Millennium that’s tipped to realise up to £120,000 at the aforementioned live sale. Daniels, who died in 2011, was a well-known figure in the classic car community and regularly took part in events in vehicles from his remarkable collection that included a 1908 100-horsepower Itala grand prix car and the supercharged pre-war Bentley in which Sir Tim Birkin set a Brooklands lap record in 1931.